Thirty Years From Now (if we live that long)
by hulklinging
Summary: Ernst doesn't know how he hasn't been kicked out of the program yet. Him still being here must be a mistake. When a fellow cadet dies, he looks at his Drift partner and wonders if any of his classmates will make it to the Pacific. Spring Awakening characters in the Pacific Rim world.


it's easy enough to recite statistics and say 'it'll never happen to me.' Ernst stares down at Mortiz's grave and all he can see are the numbers. The statistics that should have warned him this was coming. He knew that training took its toll, that when faced with their own mind in the vastness of the drift, there's usually at least one trainee in each batch can't handle it. He just never took that fact and compared it to his own class. Never looked across the lunch table and imagined which one of them would leave it before ever even facing a Kaiju.

"He should never have Georg his far," Hanschen murmurs in his ear, like it's supposed to be a comfort. "They should have sent him home ages ago. He was never going to survive the drift."

Ilse, Moritz's copilot, bites back a sob from across the crowded room. Ernst's stomach twists.

"He passed all the tests. He found a partner who was drift compatible. What where they supposed to do?"

Hanschen shrugs, like he doesn't care that one of their teammates was so horrified by what he saw in the drift, what he saw in himself, that within twelve hours he was dead.

They may be drift compatible, but sometimes he can't help but hate the folder boy for his nonchalance.

"At least pretend to care, Hanschen," he whispers. His eyes are drawn to Melchior Gabor. Moritz's childhood friend. They'd enlisted together, so sure they would go all the way through training and into a Jaeger together. But then Melchior had met Wendla, had taken one look at her and known, like some kind of fairy tale. And Moritz had conveniently found Ilse. Ernst wonders what their neural handshake had looked compatible had they actually been?

Hanschen's hand is on his shoulder. Ernst feels like he's suffocating.

"Don't worry." Hanschen's voice sounds softer than usual, but that must just be wishful thinking. Hanschen is always focused, never anything but blunt. "That won't be us."

He sounds so sure. Ernst nods, wanting to believe him. Moritz's grave looks so small. Everything the boy was, folded neatly into a casket and a memory. Would Ernst be that small? Maybe there wouldn't even be a body, everything that makes him Ernst absorbed by the powerful personality of the boy beside him.

Ernst didn't want to be a Ranger.

The problem was that everyone wanted to be a Ranger. When Germany announced that they were putting some Jaegers together, sending their own team of pilots to the Pacific, every able-bodied youth in his small town had enlisted. So he had followed, somehow gotten himself into the running for those few spots. Even now, he keeps expecting a tap on the shoulder, someone ready to tell him that there's been a mistake, he isn't supposed to be here.

He survived cut after cut, until the hundreds of hopefuls had been whittled down to the best of the best, brought to the kwoon and given a stick and told to fight each other. Instructors walked around, clipboards in hand, having them switch every few minutes as they tried to spot those who showed promise. Ernst was shaking, but he had also been relieved. This would be it, the moment they realized he had no business being here. He wouldn't be compatible with anyone, and he'd be sent home. He listened as Wendla and Melchior were pulled aside first, and then another pair, and another. Which each pair called, he felt a little more hopeful.

Then Hanschen had stepped in front of him. He looked into the other boy's eyes, readjusted his grip, and blocked every one of the boy's attacks. It wasn't balanced in the way the other pairs were. Ernst has watched Melchior and Wendla since, and every bout of theirs has an almost musical quality to it, like a dance with no missed steps. Him and Hanschen couldn't touch that. When they fight, Ernst is constantly on the defensive, stance low and light. Hanschen is stone, the earth undeniable. Unrelenting in his attacks. When he does land hits, they leave bruises, knock the wind out of him. In comparison, Ernst is the sea, learning to compliment, moving to accommodate.

"Unconventional, but the best that either of them will find," he overheard one of their instructors say. It's enough to get them here, the twenty top applicants in the final stages of training. But Ernst is not sure how going into the Drift with Hanschen will work, doesn't really expect it to work at all. So regardless of how comforting Hanschen tries to be, Ernst isn't convinced.

They were slated for their first time in the Drift today, but Moritz and Ilse had their test yesterday. So Ernst is in his formal suit, instead of a drivesuit, trying to say goodbye to a friend.

"When do you think they'll let us get back to work?" Hanschen asks casually as they file into the mess hall that night. "Today and tomorrow are already write-offs, but after that?"

Ernst is happy to be back in his casual clothes, feels like he can breath easier without that tie around his neck. The air in the mess is thick enough to smother all on its own, heavy with mourning. "I don't understand your need to rush, Hanschen. Please don't say something like that in front of Melchior."

"Gabor can handle it," he says, sounding sure. Maybe he hadn't noticed how their classmate shook the whole ceremony. How Wendla's hand on his shoulder had looked less like a comfort and more like she was holding him back. From what? Ernst wonders. What does he know about his best friend's suicide that the rest of us don't?

Melchior is noticeably absent from their usual table, so his concerns around what Hanschen might say are laid to rest, for now. Ilse, Wendla, and Martha are also not here. Wendla is with Melchior, of course, and Ilse is probably still at the grave. But where is Martha? The remaining cadets look pale and worn.

"I might quite" Georg says in an undertone. "No luck with a partner yet, it's only a matter of time before I'm asked to leave anyway."

"Aren't they bringing some of France's cadets over?" Ernst isn't sure if that's just a rumour. Otto shrugs. He's one of the other ones in their group who haven't found a copilot yet. Martha is the other.

"Just don't force a partnership," Thea advises. That's easy for her to say, Anna's been her best friend since they were children, and unlike Melchior and Moritz, they carried that all the way to the Drift. "That's what went wrong, here. You can't force this kind of compatibility."

"Someone should have stopped them," says Anna, voice small. "Whey'd they let them try?"

"Moritz shouldn't have been here at all." Hanschen is back to this. Ernst feels sick. "Ilse having to carry the weight? It was doomed from the start."

There is a nod of agreement around the table. Ernst shouldn't say anything, but if he doesn't now, Hanschen will see it in the Drift, anyway. Might as well speak up here, while he has time.

"My test results were very similar to Moritz's," he says it quietly, but he can feel the weight of everyone's eyes nonetheless. "Do you think that I also shouldn't be here?" _Do you think you will have to carry me, in the Drift?_

Hanschen snorts, but when he talks, his voice is missing some of its confidence. "That's different. You're smart, Ernst, if a little naive. And you have a Drift partner you're actually compatible with."

Does he? Ernst grits his teeth. Who is he, to call Ernst naive? To act like he knows him? They haven't drifted together and already Hanschen pretends he's in Ernst's head.

He's tired and sad and he wants to mourn their friend in peace. Abruptly, he stands up. He can't be here anymore.

"Don't contact me until you know when our test has been moved to." He sounds a lot braver than he feels. "Please."

He doesn't run away, but he walks out of there as fast as he can. He doesn't want to see the disappointment on Hanschen's face, or hear his reply. Once out of the mess hall, he really does run, and doesn't stop until he's back in his quarters, door shut and locked behind him.

It looks like, one way or another, his time here will end when he goes into the Drift.

All he can feel is relief.


End file.
